🚀 go-pugleaf

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Deborah McCarter wrote: <<Once I found myself sitting in a field full of white
daisies in full bloom.  After a few minutes of quitely observing the flowers
near me, I noticed a hum in the air and my mind went in search of the source.
My eye came to see a bee on a near by flower and fear and panic rushed to my
mind as I then looked beyond my immediate surrounding to take in the whole
field of bees.  It took everything in me to not run screaming in terror
because you see as a young girl I had been so badly stung by bees my back
swelled like the hunchback of Notre Dame.

I sat still with my breath and fears but noticed the reality was the bees were
not bothering me and noticed I could sit calmly and observe the sight and
sounds before me.  There was a great stillness inside me, my mind was still,
there was no thinking, there was no calculating and no self reference, there
was freedom and a sense of wonder.  And it's mine, and yours, and everyone's,
just for the asking.>>

Thank you, Deb, for your story.

As you say: <<the reality was the bees were not bothering me and noticed I
could sit calmly and observe the sight and sounds before me.  There was a
great stillness inside me, my mind was still, there was no thinking, there was
no calculating and no self reference, there was freedom and a sense of
wonder.  And it's mine, and yours, and everyone's, just for the asking.>>

In Buddhism, one binds oneself, nobody binds one, and one frees oneself,
nobody frees one. One is fully responsible for oneself, in bondage as in
freedom. And without full self-responsibility, one will never be free.

Tang Huyen